I believe they truly do. I have seen things in my own life to prove that. Most of my friends and family already know this story from my life but I thought I would share it with others.

My post yesterday along with the daily prompt yesterday brought this up in my head. The daily prompt yesterday asked about how on fire have you been…metaphorically or literally. Thankfully, I have never been literally on fire but I came close. Others may debate my story but I know the truth.

I was 11 years old and living with my mom, dad, and older brother in Austin, Texas. It was the summer of ’94 and we were going to be moving in a few months to Lufkin, Texas to be closer to my grandma who was bedridden. Late in the evening one night, I was in the living room watching TV, my mom and brother were in the house somewhere and my dad was sleeping. My brother asked my mom about getting something from the grocery store so her and my brother were going to run there real quick and be back later. I asked if I could go along too and I was told no. Normally I would have just pouted and let it go but for some reason, I really wanted to go to the store with them that night. I cried and pouted and the answer was still NO. I got clever and decided to sneak out to the van and hid so I could go. Needless to say, I ended up going along with them, much to my mother’s disapproval.

When we returned from the store and turned on to our block, we saw fire trucks with flashing lights everywhere and I didn’t understand what was going on. We stopped and got out and we all realized our house had caught fire. My dad had gotten out and he was alright but the firefighters were working on the fire and all the smoke. I remember being in shock almost and very scared. It was a very surreal thing for me to imagine our house and all our belongings being up in smoke. I had a moment to think about the fact I could have been in the house and was relieved I wasn’t even though everyone seemed to think I could have woke my dad up sooner and got help quicker.

As the details of how the fire started reached my ears, I couldn’t help but get chills, though. The fire was caused by an electrical short in the stove in our kitchen. It blew up, causing the fire. Behind the stove was a wall, of course and on the other side was a recliner chair. To be more specific, my favorite recliner chair that I had been sitting in earlier, I ALWAYS sat in and if I had not left, I would have stayed sitting there watching TV. The wall was destroyed….so was that chair. I KNEW in my heart that I was meant to leave that house. I had a very strong overpowering feeling that led me to tears that I needed to get out of that house. And I knew when I heard what happened that if I had stayed, I would have died. There was no doubt in my mind then and there is still none to this day.

Family members have disagreed with me and said they think I would have been fine but they don’t know that feeling I had that night. They didn’t experience that overwhelming feeling I had when I KNEW that I had escaped death. They don’t have to believe if they don’t want to. Nothing will change the fact that I know that I was meant to not be there. I truly believe God and his angels were watching out for me and got not only me, but my mom and brother out so we wouldn’t have been in any danger. My dad was asleep all the way on the other end of the house during it but God also got him out safely too and allowed him to call for help.

Our old house was fixed and remodeled some and now my middle sister and her family live there. We lost some things but were pretty lucky to have not lost more than we did.

I will always believe things happen for a reason and I will never believe it was coincidence that saved my life that night.

[…] 1995-One of the milestone years in my life. My middle sister had her 2nd little girl who was hospitalized as a newborn for a respiratory infection. On the way to the hospital, me and my mom would get into a car accident that totaled our vehicle, but we were both OK. Started packing to move and had to say goodbye to my best friend. Before we could finish, our house caught on fire and I lived only due to my intuition. […]

“He couldn’t see why people made such a fuss about people eating their silly old fruit anyway, but life would be a lot less fun if they didn’t. And there was never an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.” ~from Good Omens